Five-Day Water Fast

Apr 5, 2018 • viliam

In the past I couldn’t imagine being without food not even for a day. I thought that my body would die within hours. I thought that I would starve to death. That is how fear works. It paralyzes us. Which results in not taking the action we know we should be.

24 hours of “starving”

Then I got my hands on the book called Healing with nutrition (it is a book written in Slovak language). I found out that fasting could be beneficial even for people like me (cough, skinny bastard, cough cough)

Authors of the book recommended to start with 24 hour fast. So I figured why the hell not. I live only once (in this body). So I gave it a go. It turned out to be pretty challenging. I could be 19 years old at the time.

I felt like I was about to die after about 15 or 16 hours. But I made it. Hell yeah. That feeling is hard to describe. I just felt like the world was mine. You know that movie, Limitless? That is exactly how I felt. But without a pill or food…

I got very hyped up after this experience. I shared it with some of my peers and relatives. Most of them were pretty concerned about my health. Cause back then, I was even skinnier, than I am now. And they advised me not doing it again. Guess what, they had no idea about fasting. No personal experience whatsoever.

But I don’t blame them. I was the same. You know, when somebody is changing we feel, that this person is threatening us. Because, this person is telling us – hey, you should change, too. But most of the time, we don’t want to. Cause living in a comfort zone is, let’s say very comfortable.

Wim Hof, a.k.a. Iceman opened my eyes

There is this guy. His name is Wim Hof. I mean, how cool is having a full name which consist of just 6 letters. Anyway, he created a method. The method which can help you to bring your body and mind under control.

I would say, it helps to come back to our natural state. To our default. Back to present. Where we belong. Because life is happening right HERE, right NOW (yes, I love that song).

What happened, is that I am much more aware of my body, of my emotions, of my feelings. I would say I am more aware of my being (if that even makes sense). Magic is happening. And you can do it, too. Because everybody has it. Inside. This inner power.

But, you will never know. Unless you try for yourself. There is nothing like personal experience. You can feel resistance right now. And that’s ok. Embrace the resistance. Dance with the fear. Because, let’s be honest here. Fear will never go away.

It will always be down there. You can either get paralyzed. Or face it. Which one will you choose? This is crucial for your life. But, I guess that as you are reading this. You took the red pill. Morpheus approves.

So, after few days of doing these exercises which Wim Hof recommends. I realized that my energy level was way up there. In the sky. It felt like I got back to my essence. I don’t really know who am I. I mean, not yet. But I am getting there. Slowly.

Moving on. So, I feel much better connection with both my body and my mind. In fact, I have never ever felt like this before. Seems like my intuition is getting stronger as well. And this is just the beginning. I am just on 6th week out of 10.

Preparation for the fast

There was none. Because I did not plan this whole thing. It just came to me naturally. Have you ever had this feeling, that you don’t really understand… But you just know it is a right thing to do. And that is exactly how I felt. I was not thinking about that. I just did it. I trusted my intuition.

Last meal I had was: whole loaf of bread (too much of it, right), 3 cooked eggs, olive oil, raw salad. Even after this meal, I didn’t feel full. So I realized, that maybe I was getting energy from different source.

First two days were easy

Again. I don’t understand how did it happen. I just did not feel hunger at all. No urge to eat. It is a mystery. Because in the past, I felt hungry as fuck, when I was doing my 24 hour fasts. But this time it felt effortless.

So, first 2,5 days I felt at ease. I was doing my usual stuff: meditation, relaxation exercises, my training, walking, talking to ton of people and lil bit of work and drinking a lot of water of course.

During these first two days, I met a lot of people. With some of them, I had quite deep conversations. So I told them about the fasting. Most of the time, they became resistent. Which is normal reaction. I would react the same without personal experience.

But anyway, they were curious why am I doing it. And they also mentioned, that they can’t imagine surviving even a day without food. Again, I totally understand.

Third day, my energy dropped down

I felt, that something was wrong. First, I got scared that I was causing harm to my body. So, I started googling for solution. And I quickly realized it was a normal process. Actually, it was the exact opposite of what I was thinking.

Body was healing itself. Lot of toxins were getting out of the body. That’s why I felt like a shit. This process can’t really happen when we have constantly some food in our bodies.

I remember that even waking up from the bed became a problem to me. But I managed to do it. Somehow. Then I got the breakfast. Which was water. And I continued with my day. But from this point, my days became were predictable.

Blood pressure was way too low

It happened on a fourth day. The moment I woke up, I felt weakness like never before. My heart was beating furiously. And I had hard time getting out of bed. So I just kept laying there for few hours. Occasionally, I drank some water. And then back to bed. Back and forth.

Sounds boring, right? It was and it wasn’t. I embraced the boredom. And started thinking about my life. Lots of stuff came up. I was analyzing my life journey.

I was asking myself a lot of questions. Things like: why am I here? Am I escaping or exploring? What is the next step? Where am I going? Am I happy? Am I making others happy? Am I bringing value to this world? Would anyone notice if I die today? Who am I? What am I scared of and why? Why am I even doing this fasting thing?

All of these questions were coming up. And much more. Answers will be coming gradually. Over time. I have to be patient. Still learning how to do that.

Then I remember this strong craving. I started thinking about food. My mouth was full of saliva. It took me two minutes to realize, that this need was not PHYSIOlogical but PSYCHOlogical. My body was ok. I didn’t feel hungry. It was just my mind messing with me. Testing my will power and persistence.

Obviously, it took me a while to realize that. Which means, I was not well aware at that moment. Suddenly, I came to a conclusion, that most of the time we eat, not because we need to, but because we want to. We don’t appreciate food enough and take it for granted.

Last day

It is funny, because I still din’t feel like eating yet. I just wasn’t hungry. But then I realized, that fasting is just the beginning. Getting back to normal food would be much more challenging. So I stopped on my fifth day. Humility and respect prevailed. And fear, too. All of this was new to me and I didn’t know what to expect.

But I really loved the challenge. I learned a lot about my body. This definitely wasn’t my last fast. Will be doing more of them in the future.

Let’s eat something

You have to keep on your mind, that digestion system is asleep after 5 days of not eating. So you gotta start very slowly. I didn’t have any experience with this process, so I asked my friends. And they advised me to start with steamed vegetables. And then slowly starting to eat some fruits, rice and so on.

Here is how I did it.

First day: My first meal was - cooked tomatoes. It is better to have them steamed, but I just didn’t have instruments for that. So I cooked them for about 1-2 minutes. And I ate all of it. Even water. It was one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. It felt orgasmic.

Second meal – pumpkin soup. Markets were closed, so I had to eat out again. I wanted a carrot soup, but unfortunately they didn’t have it on the menu. So I went for a pumpkin one. Again, the taste of it was just amazing.

Second day: This time I was eating fruits. Throughout the day. It started with dragon fruit. And then I had a mango. I think that this amount would be more than enough. But I listened to my inner voice, which was telling me to eat more than that. So I had another big mango and dragon fruit. After eating it, I felt very exhausted. So it was a signal, that I shouldn’t have done that. Lesson learned.

Third day: After previous day. I realized that I have to be more cautious. So I just bought two pieces of mango. I had only half of it for breakfast. And ate the rest of it for the dinner (which was one and a half piece of mango). Again, I think that one mango for the whole day would be enough. But I am satisfied with the result anyway.

Then, after few hours, I got hungry again. I didn’t have anything, but rice. So I took a risk and ate it. Again, this meal tasted so good. I added a bit of soy sauce into it. Because without it, it just tasted like nothing. Because I didn’t use any salt/oil.

Fourth day: I bought baguette, oil, eggs and green salad. So I had 2 boiled eggs, half of a baguette, a little bit of olive oil and few leafs of green salad. This meal was quite risky. I just failed. Because the process of getting back to food should take the same time as fasting itself.

Craving was just very strong. But again. I learned a lesson. And next time, I will be more cautious.

Good news is, that my body accepted proteins and fats without any problems. So, from this day, I started eating normal again.

For Slovak/Czech speaking audience, here is the information, on how to start eating after fasting: http://www.vitazdroje.eu/post/navrat-k-jedlu-po-poste-navratovka

It is a good guideline. I will definitely use it during my next fasts. And overtime, I will probably feel what works for me and what does not. And you can do the same. Because nobody knows better than you.